


Boy With The Bread

by Tortellini



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: 74th Hunger Games, Book/Movie 1: The Hunger Games, Dysfunctional Family, Family, Family Bonding, Family Dynamics, Family Issues, Gen, POV Peeta Mellark, Reapings (Hunger Games), Sad, Sad Ending, Wordcount: 100-500
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:20:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24982216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tortellini/pseuds/Tortellini
Summary: Before the Seventy-Fourth Hunger Games, Peeta Mellark says goodbye to his family.Oneshot/drabble
Kudos: 13





	Boy With The Bread

Peeta Mellark sat on the couch in the Justice Building, basically waiting to be carted off to his death. He tried in vain not to cry, but a few tears leaked out anyway, and he hurriedly brushed them away with the back of his hand. 

At least his family was there with him…to say goodbye.

His brother, Brot, was eighteen. He could’ve volunteered—but the thing the Everdeen girl did for her little sister was very unusual. Family ties usually only went so far. Brot lowered his eyes, ashamed, from his little brother.

Still, the fact that it _might not be him_ burned into Peeta’s mind.

“Maybe this year we’ll actually have a victor,” Peeta’s sour mother said in the doorway. Peeta cast his saddened blue eyes up hopefully up to her, until she added harshly, “She could do it, y’know. She has spirit.”

So his own mother didn’t believe he could win.

“She’d have to get past Haymitch Abernathy first,” Peeta’s oldest brother Londer spoke up, with a wry smile. “They both got _too much_ spirit to get along easily. Peet’ll do a better job, now, won’t you?”

Peeta only looked helplessly at him…at each of them.

Peeta’s father, the soft-spoken baker of the Seam, stepped forward with a humble package wrapped in plain brown paper. “Son,” he said softly. “This is for you.”

Peeta managed a sad shy smile in return as he took the bundle from his father. “Thanks, Dad,” he mumbled…and unwrapped it.

It was a small loaf of bread in the shape of a curled-up cat, still warm and golden from the oven. He had admired it on the walk to the Reaping with his brothers…but he hadn’t said anything to either of his parents. 

Besides, before the Reaping—before any of this happened—seemed a whole lifetime ago, he thought bittersweetly.

He opened his mouth to say something to him—to all of them—before there was a quick knock on the door. All of them looked up; without waiting for an answer, Effie Trinket poked her head in and gave a big smile.

“Are we all ready for the train, Peeta?”

“Miss Trinket, actually—“

“Great. I’ll just tell the driver of the train…and of course Katniss and her family. I’ll give you one more minute, and then we can be off.”

She disappeared. Only a minute later, a Peace-keeper came and rather forcefully took his family away…

And Peeta was once again alone.


End file.
